


tell me why are we wasting time

by thoroughlytrash



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, Injury, lonely jean, mikasa as an assassin, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8119957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoroughlytrash/pseuds/thoroughlytrash
Summary: “I didn’t expect there to be a house so deep in the woods,” she says, wanting to break the silence so something other than her thoughts can fill her head. She can feel the pain in her leg pulling on it, wanting to bring her down. She feels the knife underneath her jacket digging into her ribs, and she wonders if she would be able to stick it into his heart now.
   “I didn’t expect anyone to come here,” he replies, almost mockingly; and it sounds so terribly familiar. She’s ready to reply as she steps forward, but she lands on her injury and the surge of pain that emerges is too much for her to handle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from "treat you better" by shawn mendes

It starts with her horse rearing for seemingly no reason, and her falling off. She feels like a trainee again, inexperienced and prone to making mistakes, when the sharp pain in her leg intensifies as she tries to stand. She grabs onto the back of her horse, and pulls herself up onto it, hoping that she won’t fall off as she sits down. She tries to ignore the stab in her leg, telling herself that it’s nothing more than just a scratch. 

She’s dressed in moderately civilian clothes – not a dress, no, though it’s not as if she wore many back when she had the chance to – and she knocks on the door of the first house she finds. 

To be fair, she hadn’t even thought that she’d find a house here, on the outskirts of the city. The nearest one is at least a day’s journey away, but at least it’s a place to stay, even if only for the night. She’ll have to wait for her leg to heal, anyway, and If no one lives there, the place will be perfect.

It’s not a big house – nothing of the sort – but it looks nice. All that’s left to wonder is why the person who built this had to leave the city. She thanks them, silently, in her mind.

After several moments of waiting, she’s ready to try and open the door and break into the house – if no one’s living there, at least she can rest there for the night – when the door opens to reveal a man who’s surely not much older than her.

 _It’s him,_ she has a chance to think, her eyes recognizing the man’s face. She’s been looking at it for months – it’s plastered over every town, the _WANTED_ sign underneath it glaring at her. She’s read reports on him as well – as about who he was, where he could be, but none about the crimes he committed.

And it’s the man she’s been sent out to kill and bring his body back, she thinks bitterly.

“I didn’t expect there to be a house so deep in the woods,” she says, wanting to break the silence so something other than her thoughts can fill her head. She can feel the pain in her leg pulling on it, wanting to bring her down. She feels the knife underneath her jacket digging into her ribs, and she wonders if she would be able to stick it into his heart now.

“I didn’t expect anyone to come here,” he replies, almost mockingly; and it sounds so terribly familiar. She’s ready to reply as she steps forward, but she lands on her injury and the surge of pain that emerges is too much for her to handle.

\--

When she wakes up, she’s lying in a bed. She doesn’t know the surroundings, and the clothes on her aren’t hers. She knows that if she hadn’t lost her childish innocence so quickly – that Levi still blames himself for – she’d have red blossoming on her cheeks and neck.

She’s alone, and she takes a moment to gather herself. She’s in the house of Jean Kirstein – it must be, she thinks, as she doesn’t believe she’d mix his face with someone else’s. It’s almost a wonder that she’s awake, still alive.

She wonders why he’s sentenced to death, why his life is marked off as useless. He’s barely twenty-two; a year younger than her, and yet she’s ordered to put a knife through his heart.

“You’re awake,” she hears someone say and she turns her head slowly to the man who just entered the room. When she doesn’t reply, he sighs and says, “I put your clothes over there, in the drawer,” and there’s pink on his cheeks, though it disappears quickly when his eyes look over there, almost zeroing in on the location, “uh, your – your knife is in there, too, should you need it.”

“Why?” She asks, pushing herself to sit up and lean back on her elbows. She can’t stop the wince that comes from her leg and wonders how bad it was. “Why’d you take me in?”

“My mother would be disappointed if I didn’t at least try to help,” he answers, a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes prominent on his face and she wonders if he knows that the knife is the weapon she had planned to use to kill him. She wonders if he knows that her job is to kill him.

A silence falls upon them and he stumbles awkwardly over his words.

“You – uh, you must be hungry, yes? I’ll bring up a soup, so it won’t upset your stomach.” She watches him for a moment, turning her head to stare at the wall. She thinks she hears him say, “It’ll take a week to heal, just like before,” as the door closes, but she has no time to think about what that means when her eyes involuntarily start falling to each other.

\--

She stirs awake at the touch of his arm on her shoulder, and notices rather quickly the bowl of soup he’s holding in one arm. He’s planning to feed her – of course, she thinks.

To feed her or to poison her.

“You should eat.”

“How do I know it’s not poison?” She asks, never one to sugarcoat her words. He recoils, his eyes widening.

“Why would I poison you?” He replies, even if it’s rude to answer questions with a question, and if his mother taught him to take care of strangers, she definitely taught him some manners. “If my plan was to kill you, I would have done so after you fainted.”

He doesn’t ask her if she plans to kill him, though he must have an idea. If her wandering on her own in the middle of the woods with a knife isn’t suspicious, she doesn’t know what is.

“Now eat,” he tells her, but her arms feel slack when she tries to lift them up. He looks at them carefully, and instead takes the spoon. He gathers a small amount of soup onto it, and brings it to her mouth. She opens it, and it hits her tongue quickly, though it’s neither too hot nor too cold. There’s something about the taste – something familiar, as if she’s eaten it before. “See? It’s not poison.”

After he finishes feeding her the soup, he moves to stand up, but she puts a hand on his arm, making him freeze.

“Do you have any – any means of communication? I need to send a letter to my friends, they must be worried,” she tells him, and it’s only half a lie. Armin and Eren know that she’s sent out – for a month, too, but by now she should be further in her journey, yet she’s stuck in one place. It doesn’t matter that her task is only delayed by two days; at this moment, she’d rather get it over with.

She wishes that her horse hadn’t reared and that she accidentally moved past the little house. She wishes she hadn’t met the man, who seems all too familiar and too strange at the same time.

“No,” he replies after a moment, “I – I’m not much of a people person, I suppose.”

She knows it’s a lie, learned it from the constant reading of Marco, Marco, Marco in the notes. She knows that he used to be popular, though perhaps not very liked for his honest and blunt personality, but there was always at least one person with him. Connie, Sasha, Marco, to name a few. Berthold, if she remembers correctly, and Reiner, too.

She wonders what happened to them, wonders if they were, too, set to be killed, or if they’re living a peaceful live in the city somewhere.

“You’ll be able to go after your leg heals,” he tells her, “or at least gets better. The nearest city is a day’s – “

“- journey north,” she interrupts, “I’m aware.”

\--

“You should be able to walk on your own in a few days,” he tells her on the third day, his cheeks still red from when he had to assist in her going to the restroom.

“You’re a doctor?” She asks, watching the precision with which he changes her bandage. There was nothing about it written in the records, and she wonders.

“I used to – take care of my mother,” he replies after a moment, his voice soft. “I had to take care of myself, too, after – I had to take care of myself.”

There’s something he’s not mentioning – the crime, she supposes, and she’s mad that Levi hadn’t told her what he had done.

“Your mother?” She prompts, wanting to know more. The documents had omitted any and all information about his mother after a certain point.

“Yes.” He answers simply, pushing himself up. He leaves the room, and she wonders if she asked too much.

\--

“What’s your name?” She asks him the next day, after he’s handed her soup. It’s almost funny, how she has to catch herself from mentioning his name and after nearly four days of spending time together does she get around to formally asking for it.

And her job is to kill him, she reminds herself, and tries not to think about the red that would stain his light green shirt if her knife went through it into his heart.

“Jean,” he replies quickly, and his mouth opens as if he’s about to continue, but he closes it quickly. He looks at her expectantly, and she nods.

“Mikasa,” she tells him, almost praying that he doesn’t recognize the name.

His eyes flash with recognition and she’s worried – she knows that now, it’s the end, that he knows, that –

“Ackerman?” he asks, and she can almost feel him reaching for the pillow to strangle her, can see him holding the knife above her chest and can taste the poison he’ll no doubt include in his next meal for her. She nods slowly, and his eyes widen, he knows, he knows - 

“104th,” he tells her, and she narrows her eyes, scrunching her brows together. There’s something familiar about the number, yet nothing that stands out. His face falls, and he stands up. “I’m sorry.” He mutters, and she thinks he adds, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you.”

She dreams of large beings that night, of his touch and of his screams. She dreams of the shape his mouth makes when he shouts her name, full with despair and guilt. She dreams of meeting him in the dead of night, his touch gentle and smooth and her voice pleading as she mouths his name.

\--

“Why do you live so far out of town?” She asks him one day, when she’s starting to make her way around his house even with her injury. She’s almost able to walk well, and judges that it’ll be less than a week before she’ll be able to go to the city.

“Hm?” He asks, from the kitchen, where he’s busy making something to eat. She had offered to help him, despite her mind shouting that her knife will be the end of him.

Instead of doing anything else, she repeats her question, this time louder.

“I like silence,” he tells her after a moment, and she wonders if that is truly the case. The repots never mention anything, other than that he used to be a rather loud person, nothing stopping the words that tumbled from his mouth. He appears more reserved now, and she wonders what caused that.

\--

She kisses him the next day, when he comes in during the morning to check on her. He leans over her, his hand going on her forehead and she moves up, her lips touching his, her mind plagued by the constant thoughts of his lips, of his hands on her.

She’s kissed before – of course she has, she’s kissed on the cheek and on the lips; Eren, Armin, and even once Levi. Somehow, though, this feels different. It feels too much like her dream.

She pulls away, her eyes searching his, and he looks surprised. Her heart sinks, and she remembers that she’ll have to kill him. Before she has time to think about it, though, one of his hands go behind her head and they kiss again.

“Sorry,” he apologizes after pulling away, his eyes everywhere but on her. She reaches out to take his hand, and though there’s no smile on her face, she hopes he understands.

\--

“There’s something I have to tell you.” He says this the next morning when her leg is almost healed and he’s helping her onto her horse. She’s going to go to the city, and she oesn’t want to go, even if she knows she has to.

“You’ll tell me when I come back,” she tells him, and wonders if she’s going to come back.

And if she does come back, is it going to be to stay with him or to murder him?

“Alright,” he manages, though his eyes look sad and he’s not smiling – she wishes he was; his smile, rare, although not rarer than hers, seems to brighten the place they’re in. She leans down, kissing his cheek, before she turns her head to let their lips touch.

She pulls away, quickly- too quickly, missing the warmth of him far too quickly.

“I’ll miss you,” she tells him, and he nods.

She doesn’t look back as she rides into the city.

\--

As it turns out, she has no need to write a letter, which she had originally planned to do in the city. She runs into Eren and Armin in the city, passing by the countless posters with Jean’s name and face plastered over them.

“Mikasa!” Eren had yelled, rushing forward with Armin right behind him. He nearly pulls her off the horse, hugging her. “Oh, God, Mikasa, I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Are you okay?” Armin asks, his eyes trailing down to the neatly-wrapped bandage around her leg.

“It’s fine,” she brushes it off. She tries to tell herself that she doesn’t have to complete her mission – that he’ll be fine, living out of the city. She tells herself that she can just leave him, forget, pretend that she’s looking for him somewhere else.

She can’t stop herself, however, when the words, “I need to talk to Levi,” tumble out of her mind, reminding her that duty comes first.

\--

She arrives at his house two days later. There’s an ambush prepared, she knows, with Levi leading it. She’s sent out to lead out him.

She knocks on the door, and he opens it quicker than before. He’s surprised, his eyes widen, but it takes him hardly anytime to hug her, his arms around her.

“I thought you wouldn’t come back,” he whispers, and she wants to tell him about the ambush, and how they’re preparing his death. She wants to push him inside the house, to disappear in there and not come out. “I thought that, for the second time, I lost you – “

And it all happens so fast, she has no time to prepare but suddenly she’s pulled away and she sees people grab him as he’s staring in disbelief at her, and the betrayal in his eyes makes her look away.

\--

They bring him back to the base and she walks by the room he’s kept him multiple times, hearing nothing.

She wonders if it’s too late, if she could somehow help him escape – even if only so that he can live alone, hidden. She wonders if –

“I’m sorry, Mikasa,” Armin tells her, bringing up a hand to her shoulder. She doesn’t bother looking at him. She doesn’t need the look of pity nor of concern; duty always comes first, she reminds herself. “It’s – “

“It was my task,” she interrupts, the shells that she had taken down years ago built again, the walls that were destroyed fixed. “I had no choice.”

And the worst thing is that she did, _she did,_ she could have let him be, she could have never returned, she could have –

“I understand,” Armin tries again, his words quiet.

\--

He’s killed later that day, and she doesn’t look. She doesn’t want to see the sadness, doesn’t want to face him again.

She corners Levi after the execution.

“Why?” She asks, “why was I sent to kill him?”

(The only comfort she has it that it wasn’t her, that she wasn’t the one to stick the knife in his chest. But it’s not even correct, she knows, as she remembers how he looked when they collected him after she lead him out, and she knows she betrayed him.)

She needs a reason that makes her know that what she was right, that she should have done it.

“He spoke too much,” he tells her, straightening up even though he’s shorter than her. “I’m sorry, Mikasa.”

She doesn’t answer as she leaves.

\--

She’s plagued later, during the night, of dreams of a different life, filled with nightmares and horrors and short moments of her and him, in between the battles and wars and constant deaths. She dreams of him taking care of her on an expedition, using whatever supplies to help her heal. She dreams of healing after a week, of them going out together to return to their base. She remembers misjudging the distance and falling, darkness engulfing her as a large humanoid chomps down on her, the only sounds around her his screams.

**Author's Note:**

> something i found on my laptop and decided to post!!


End file.
